The present invention relates generally to a safety seat belt apparatus for motor vehicles and, more particularly, to a vehicle occupant restraining safety apparatus for restraining the occupant sitting on a seat within a vehicle body and also for protecting the occupant's legs.
There is known an automotive vehicle, for example, a passenger car, wherein there is provided a vehicle occupant restraining safety apparatus including, in addition to a popular safety seat belt device, a knee protector for protecting the occupant's legs or knees in case of emergency, for example, at the time of vehicle collision. As best shown in FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings which schematically illustrates, in side view, a front or driver's seat portion of the vehicle body, the safety seat belt device of the prior art vehicle occupant restraining safety apparatus comprises a safety seat belt 1 having one end removably connected by any suitable buckle assembly to a portion of the vehicle body, for example, either an upper region of a center pillar or a front door frame member 2, on one side of the front seat, and the other end connected to an automatic retractor 3 of any known construction which is rigidly secured to and installed on a portion of a floor panel intermediately of the width of the vehicle body. The knee protector, identified by 4 and employed in the same prior art vehicle occupant restraining safety apparatus, is installed below the vehicle instrument panel 5 with its opposite ends rigidly secured through brackets 6, as best shown in FIG. 2, to hinge pillars generally positioned frontwardly of and on respective sides of the driver's seat, a substantially intermediate portion of said knee protector 4 extending widthwise of the vehicle body. The knee protector 4 employed in the prior art vehicle occupant restraining safety apparatus is operatively isolated from the safety seat belt device and, therefore, has no relation to the operation of the safety seat belt device. This results in the following problem which is not negligible from the standpoint of safety of the vehicle occupant.
Specifically, in case of vehicle collision, although the occupant sitting on the seat inside the vehicle body appears to be firmly restrained by the safety seat belt 1 when the retractor 3 is held in a locked position so as not to permit the safety seat belt 1 to be loosely drawn out of the retractor 3, an appreciable length of the safety seat belt 1 is, in practice, pulled out of the retractor 3 by the action of the thrust force imposed by the occupant on the safety seat belt 1 before the retractor 3 is brought to the locked position. Until the retractor 3 is completely brought into the locked position, the occupant moves frontwardly and, at the same time, hits the knee protector 4 with his knees during the forward bodily movement. When the occupant's knees hit the knee protector 4 in the manner described above, the knee protector 4 elastically deforms and protrudes in a direction parallel to the direction in which the thrust force acts, to such an extent that it may cause physical damage to the occupant.